


The Two Sides of My Brain Need to Have a Meeting

by cumberhardhiddlesbitch



Series: The Rhombus 'Verse [4]
Category: British Actor RPF
Genre: Multi, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 13:09:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11059647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cumberhardhiddlesbitch/pseuds/cumberhardhiddlesbitch
Summary: Shannon goes round to Tom's for the evening.  Begins on the same day as "Now I Know Your Heart I Know Your Mind."





	The Two Sides of My Brain Need to Have a Meeting

Shannon sat on the sofa with her quilt over her shoulders, sketching in the spine-broken moleskine she kept on the bookshelf. It was meant to be a day off-- she kept herself to a schedule, in case there was a time when inspiration was low, so that she didn't get to the point where she didn't work, or even leave the house, but with Tom on her mind she had only wanted to draw. Not his face-- that wouldn't be possible without a reference for some time-- but she remembered the shape of his hands, easily enough, and the shadows between his fingers when he held his coffee mug, the way his fingers flattened and bent when he rested his hand on the back of the sofa. It was freeing, too, sketching hands, considering that she wasn't really sure, without being able to see him, whether or not she was getting it wrong. It was easy to slip into something almost like a trance, even with the light from the window fading. When she found herself squinting at the page she sat up straighter, stretched, and looked at the time on her phone. Almost seven. She wasn't sure when Sarah and Max were due home, and while she was perfectly comfortable being in the lounge she didn’t want to appear slattern, with her bed linen down in the common area. She picked up, folding the quilt up and taking it back to her room.

She resisted the urge to curl up on her bed, then. Just because it was a well earned day off that was no reason to spend it mooning about like a love-sick teenager. She had woken to find the house empty, and Edward had still been with James when she'd called him, begging off a post-mortem of her evening until he was done with his own adventure. Full of nervous energy she'd run almost all the way to the center of the next village, burning off some of the electric feeling that made her hands shake, but also leaving her with sore shins and feet once she'd exhausted herself, and still, when she got home, no text from Edward. She smiled to herself, though, happy that he was having a good time.

The kitchen was oddly devoid of anything she wanted to eat, though she was hungry, and she drummed her fingers on the worktop as she stared down a packet of malteasers that someone had left there. Eating chocolate for supper was not going to make her feel better, she was sure of it, but given the fact that nothing else was presenting itself....

She grabbed at her phone as it buzzed a text message at her, something flipping in her chest when she realized it was not from Edward, but Tom.

_So, did you wake up this morning?_

She rolled her eyes, an automatic response. _Around nine. Not bad. You?_

_Same. Louis has been here all day. He had a fever but he seems to be doing better now._

_Poor kid. Is he teething?_ She sat down on one of the bar stools and picked at the edge of the Malteasers packet until it opened, sliding one out.

_No, he's got most of his teeth. Just a kid thing I guess._

She toyed with her phone for a moment, wondering if she could possibly ask if Louis was staying the night, if that would be too obvious that she was wondering if she could see Tom again so soon. It dinged its little picture message tone and she accepted the text, found herself looking at a picture of Tom with Louis on his lap, clearly taken by his own outstretched hand. Louis was wearing jammies with little trains on them, and he had his mouth open in a grin, showing off his teeth. Tom looked like he'd been caught mid-word, his mouth awkwardly open, and Shannon found herself unaccountably pleased that he'd sent it anyway.

_Nice pjs._

_It's a rule, little boys have to have trains on their pjs. His mum is coming to get him any moment._

She wondered if Louis sometimes stayed at his house, and if not, why not-- his preference, or his mother's insistence, or something else. As if Tom had read her mind he texted her back.

_He'll stay over the weekend but his mom has tomorrow off work so this works better. Think she's here, back soon._

She set the phone down, sure that it would be a while, but the next text that came through was a picture. She clicked it open, saw only an extreme close-up of Louis' nose and one eye.

She laughed, imagining him making a grab for the phone. She finished the Malteasers, fed the cat, and was considering starting some pasta when the phone buzzed again.

_Sorry about that. I was letting him play with the keys. Thought I had it locked._

_Dangerous enterprise, that. Couldn't he phone Dubai or something?_

_Hasn't yet. Can I call you?_

_Sure_

She let it ring one full time before she answered, despite knowing that he knew that she had the phone in her hand.

"Hi."

"Hi." There was a subtle creaking sound, as if he were settling into a leather sofa. "So, what have you been up to today?"

"I took the day off. Read some, went for a run, did my laundry." She covered her face with her hand, hearing herself. "Sorry, have you died of boredom yet?"

"Not at all. I spent the day wiping snot off the nose of someone who really did not want his nose wiped, dosed Calpol, and watched Postman Pat on repeat. Your day sounds positively invigorating by comparison."

"But he's alright now?" Shannon asked.

"He's still got the snots but his fever broke and he seemed tired but happy when he was going home. His mother could not have been more relieved. I don't think there's been much sleep in that house the last few nights."

"Lucky for you I guess that he's better before the weekend."

"My thoughts exactly. My turn will come, but he's a healthy little guy most of the time."

He sounded almost shy when he talked about his son, his voice softer, fond. "What do you usually do when he's over?"

"Blocks, clay, making a mess, usually. He's got this Batman figure that someone gave him and he thinks he has a really clear idea about who Batman is, but he hasn’t got a clue. Rachael and I were going to try to keep him on non-representational toys for the first few years but I figured it was going to be a losing battle. I have no idea where he even got it." 

"What does this Batman figure do, exactly?" she asked.

"Kills bad guys, mostly." He sounded ashamed to admit it.

She laughed out loud, remembering her step-sister's struggles with her youngest son. "My step-sister Laura tried to raise her kids with just all organic toys and no tv, and then her three year old started making everything into a gun. Sticks were guns, his fingers were guns, the spoon was a gun."

"Was this in America? I mean, everyone has a gun there, right?"

"No, it was in Ireland," she said, not rising to the bait about the guns in America. "I think only farmers have guns there, really. And, I don't know what we're calling them now. The bad guys, I guess."

"We should send Batman over there to take care of them." 

She could just imagine the mischievous look on his face, so clear after only having known him for one evening. "Sounds reasonable. See if Louis will give him up for a week or two."

"Nah, he won't need that long. He's Batman."

"Oh, true, my mistake. How long do you think it would take him to fly there?"

She waited but there was nothing but silence, and she wondered if the call had dropped.

"Tom?"

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

"Oh, it was nothing, I was just wondering how long it would take Batman to fly to Ireland. To Sligo, to be precise."

"Shannon. Batman can't fly."

"No. What? He's _bat_ -man. Of course he can fly."

"No, Shannon, I assure you, Batman cannot fly." He was giggling openly now. "I thought you liked films?"

"I do, but the last superhero film I saw had Christopher Reeve in it."

Tom calmed his giggling enough to be coherent again. "You never saw the Batman with Michael Keaton in it?"

"It looked silly." 

"Oh, this won't do."

"Also I thought that the penguin looked creepy."

"The penguin is creepy, but that's the point. What about the originals? With Adam West?"

"Yeah, I saw maybe one or two of those. They were ok. Kind of campy."

"He didn't fly in any of those."

"But he had a cape!" She was laughing despite herself now. 

"Oh my god. You were one of those kids who jumped off a roof with a cape on, weren't you?"

"No. I built wings for my Radio Flyer and rode it down a hill." She touched the tiny scar on her right elbow, where a sharp piece of gravel had gotten lodged under the skin. 

"Radio Flyer?"

"It's a shallow metal wagon, always red. They're brilliant, they can be anything a kid wants them to be. Except a working airplane, apparently."

"Broken bones?"

"Tiny scar." Something hit her suddenly. "I hadn't thought of that for years."

"Wings, huh?"

"Yeah. They weren't exactly pretty." In her memory though the reality was overlaid with the imagination that had driven her to build them. "Maybe a little."

"What are you doing tonight?"

She let go of her elbow. "Fuck all, really. Might have to go to the shops, I've got nothing in. Not like I couldn't have done that any time today."

"Because you should come over."

"Yeah?" She opened the drawer in the worktop where they kept the time tables for the trains. Getting to Islington was going to take some doing, but it was possible-- the light rail still ran for a few hours yet.

"You need to watch Batman."

She groaned theatrically. "Will there be food? I am, at this moment, literally a starving artist."

"I'm contemplating whether to subject you to my entirely workman-like cookery or order something in."

"I could get something on my way," she pointed out, suddenly aware that she'd more or less demanded he get her dinner.

"No, stay there, I'm going to come and pick you up. I know it's not a cinch to get from yours to mine, especially this time of the evening."

"If you're going to come all this way we could always stay here," she said. The thought of being at his mercy in terms of coming home was a little sobering-- not fear, exactly, more the feeling that it was something she _should_ consider.

"Could do."

At that very moment the front door opened, and a moment later a happy cacophony of voices filled the front hall. Sarah and Max were both home, with another two couples who Shannon knew by sight, but not well. She felt herself quailing immediately at the thought of having to be social around so many practical strangers, especially with Tom by her side.

"On second thought, it would be great if you could come and get me."

"Did a circus just arrive in your house?" All around her in the kitchen now were the festive sounds of bottles being set on worktops, glasses taken out, the rustling of bags of food being opened. 

"You might say that." She was nearly backed into the corner by the garden door, her foot against the cat bowls.

"I'll be there in half an hour."

"Perfect. See you then." She rang off and looked up to see Sarah staring at her, hand clamped over her mouth.

"Sarah, what is it?" She looked down at her shirt, then behind herself, expecting a giant spider or some other nasty thing.

"I totally forgot you'd be in, I should have called to see if you wanted anything."

One of the men looked up at her-- Jeremy, maybe-- holding out a container of paneer. "There's plenty of this if you want some, and they always put in extra samosas."

"I'm alright, thanks though," she said. A chorus of offers of various foods came at her and she shook her head. "I've got a date, actually."

That sent the room silent, and she barely restrained the urge to roll her eyes at all of them-- it wasn't that surprising, surely? Just because she hadn't in a while, or since she'd known them, was no reason to think she was never going to.

"The same guy from last night?" Max asked, a sly look on her face.

"Yes, him. Tom."

"Tom what?" Max pressed.

"Why, are you writing a book?"

"Just want to know who to call in to the authorities." She raised her eyebrows, a joke, but not letting it go.

"Tom Hamilton." The lie slipped out before she could even think of it, and she hoped that it wasn't the name of another actor or sport personality that she'd forgotten.

"What does he do?" Jeremy asked. "One of us might know him, after all, we could vouch for him so Max doesn't go all vigilante on him."

She thought quickly of the various places they all worked, tried to choose something that none of them had a connection to. "He works at White City, for the BBC. He's a PA on one of the breakfast shows." It was a job her sister had had, once, long ago.

"Interesting," Max said. "I thought he looked like someone. He's never been on television?"

She shook her head. "Not that I know of. Now, excuse me, I've got to go change." She ran upstairs, hoping they'd all be too interested in their own business to notice that she was being picked up but not bringing him inside. Among the six of them there'd be bound to be someone who would recognize him.

She managed a quick shower and put her hair up, then fretted about clothes. As she looked the discomfort of having lied so blatantly ate at her, and she tried to squish the feeling down.

She considered a skirt. It showed her legs off to good advantage, but she felt oddly exposed though it was modest enough. She swapped it for jeans, kept a simple purple v-neck, slightly nicer than a plain tee but not so fancy as to look like she'd fussed, though he must have known that she would. She kept her phone close to hand, jumping when it actually rang.

"Hello?" She slipped her feet into shoes, gave herself one last glance, moving back and forth to capture the entire picture of herself in her short mirror.

"I'm almost to your house," Tom said. "I just passed the Lidl."

"Ok, I'm coming right down then. See you in a second." She pulled on her jacket, grabbed her purse, and tried to slip down the stairs silently. She had almost made it to the front door when Max caught her eye from the living room. She'd positioned herself right in front of the hearth, the better to see up the stairwell by, Shannon thought. 

Max hurried over, standing close to her in the corner by the door, where no one else in the living room could see them.

"Where are you going tonight?"

Another lie started to form on the back of her tongue, but Shannon bit it back. "I'm going to his house. He's picking me up in a few seconds now."

Max stared at her, disbelieving. "This isn't anyone you know. Why not just have him come in here if you're just going to hang out?"

Shannon nodded towards the living room. "Hello? There's only about a million people here."

"Six. And we don't bite."

Shannon stood her ground, resolute.

"At least go some place public," Max entreated her.

"Like my studio, last night?" Shannon asked, one eyebrow creeping up. It wasn't a conscious expression, but one she could feel.

"Was Christian there?"

Shannon nodded. "Yes, actually." She sighed. "Not everyone is a creep, Max, seriously."

"No, just most men." Max was holding firm, not stopping her entirely, but Shannon would have had to have pushed past her to get out the door.

"Ok, listen. I don't want to have him over here because he is a little famous, and it would be a hassle for both of us if he was recognized."

"Because we're such gossips?" Max looked hurt.

"Not you and Sarah, but I don't know those people."

"He's a little famous? What does that even mean?" Max had her arms crossed, now, making her usually slim frame wider.

"He's an actor. I lied about his name. It's Tom Hardy."

Max blinked. "From Wuthering Heights?"

Shannon nodded, surprised that she recognized the name at all. Max wasn't a cinephile like Edward, not by a long shot.

"Well, now I know I'm worried."

Shannon groaned. "Tom is not actually Heathcliffe, you know this, right?"

"Yeah, I know." Max seemed to be softening, stepping back a bit. "Edward met him?"

"Yeah."

Max sighed. "That would make me feel better, but I'm guessing he was just thrilled to meet him."

"You'd almost be right. Edward was very protective of me too."

"He should at least have to come in and get you."

"What are you, my dad? I'm a grown ass woman, I can go out to meet him if I want to." Shannon looked at the door, as if she'd be able to see through it, to see if he was waiting outside even now. "Come out with me if you want."

"Ok."

Tom was at the curb, in a scuffed but solid looking Ford Fiesta. He got out of the car as soon as the door opened and stood near the passenger side, waiting for them. He was wearing a sport coat over a dark tee-shirt, dark jeans, and the same boots as the night before. Shannon held her arm out to gently move Max forward.

"Tom, this is Max. You met her last night."

"I remember. Hi Max." Tom offered her his hand and she shook it.

"Nice to see you again." She stepped back but there was still an air of expectancy about her. Tom looked to Shannon, who shook her head minutely, not knowing precisely what Max might be waiting for.

Tom seemed to know, though, and opened the passenger door for Shannon, who managed to take his hand with some grace as he held it out, steady as she got in. He leaned into the car as she was buckling her seatbelt.

"All in?"

"Yeah, I'm good," she said, making sure her knee wasn't anywhere near the door, lest he bump her with it.

"Good." He winked at her as he stood up, closing the door, and she found herself flustered, arranging her purse on her lap after she'd settled herself in. She glanced around the interior of the car, taking in the car seat in the back, the rest of the back seat covered in a blanket. When she looked out the window at Tom and Max he had his hands in his pockets, leaning forward just slightly, listening. His voice was too soft when he answered for her to have a sense of what he said, but Max looked, if not satisfied then mollified, heading back to the house.

Shannon waited until Tom was driving before she asked. "What was that all about?"

Tom smiled, not risking a glance at her as he turned on to the main road. "Ah, Max was just telling me that she knows who I am, precisely, and she said that if I harm you in any way she will cut me." He laughed, but it didn't sound dismissive, or nervous.

"And?" Shannon asked, waiting for the explanation of the laughter.

"And nothing. I believe her. That's all." He managed to glance quickly at her, then back at the road. "She knows I believe her, and that's the more important part as well. She's going to text you later this evening. Better keep your phone on you."

"Right." Shannon checked the settings on her phone, turned the ringer up to high, just in case. "Good to know."

They were silent as Tom worked his way through the stop and go and roadworks near the house, but he turned to her once they were on the A road.

"I know this is kind of messed up."

She shifted in her seat so she was looking at him, her back towards the door.

"What, has Max got you spooked? She means well."

"No, not just that." He glanced at her quickly. "If this were all normal, I would have asked you out somewhere, not my house, and I would have waited until the weekend."

She shrugged at leaned back in her seat, surprisingly comfortable. "But you've got Louis at the weekend, and besides, I don't exactly keep bankers' hours."

"True, neither do I. I don't have him every weekend, though, but I'll be having him overnight more over the next couple of weeks, because I'm getting ready to go to America for a while."

"Really?" She felt disappointed and hopeful all at once-- disappointed that he was going away, and hopeful, given that he'd made an effort to see her before he left.

"Yeah, a film there, in Pittsburgh."

"Not where I would have expected."

"Some in Philadelphia and some in Atlantic City as well, but mostly Pittsburgh."

"How long will you be gone?" She sounded casual, she hoped, not desperate.

"About two months." 

"That must be hard, to be away from Louis for so long." She looked out the window as they crossed Tower Bridge, both to hide her dismay at the thought of him going away so soon for so long, but also still enchanted after so many years by the castle walls on either side, illuminated in orange by the street lights.

"It is, but he adjusts, and there's Skype. I can talk to him and he can even see me, when it doesn't freeze."

"Nice. My dad has Skype but neither of us have a camera on our computers."

"You can probably understand him fine without looking at him though," Tom said. "Sometimes Louis is holding something out to me and babbling I'm thinking, son, I have no idea what you are saying."

She laughed. "He's still a baby."

"Nah, he's a big boy now. He has lots to say. It's just not all in English."

"I'm sure he's charming." They were through Westminster, heading north through parts of the city that she almost never ventured into.

"He is that."

 _I can't wait to meet him_ was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. It sounded like too much, in her head, and she was grateful that for once her filter seemed to be working.

"Have you been working recently?" she asked, then winced at how naive it had to sound, considering that he was probably always, in some respects, working.

"I've mainly been training for this role. I'm supposed to be a mixed martial arts fighter, and a marine."

"A royal marine?"

"No, a US Marine." He smiled but kept looking straight ahead as he slipped into an American accent, the usual flatted vowels of Pennsylvania all there. "I grew up in Pittsburgh, then moved to Oregon when I was in high school."

She couldn't help but jump; it was like a different person was in the car with them all of a sudden. "That is eerie," she said. "And well done, but also eerie."

"Did I say Oregon right?"

She said it silently in her head a few times, trying to remember how she would have said it before she moved away. "The main thing is not to say Ore-gone. I think I used to say it with an i sound in the last syllable, so it would almost rhyme with gin, but I'm pretty sure no matter how you say it, people who are from there will say you're doing it wrong."

"It's never mentioned by name in the script, probably for that reason alone. He just says Portland."

"Well, that's a problem. He could mean Maine."

He shook his head. "Not likely."

"Portland, Oregon is the second Portland."

"No it's not." He didn't even look at her, turning off the main road onto a smaller street.

"Yes it is! It was named after Portland, Maine."

He glanced at her as he paused at a stoplight. "Impossible."

"One of the founders was from Boston, one from Portland. They had a coin toss to see which name their city would have."

"Ridiculous. I don't believe you." He watched the entirely empty road intently as he drove forward.

She was on the verge of stomping her foot when she realized his shoulders were shaking. She slumped back in her seat, resisting the urge to swat him on the arm. "Ass."

He laughed out loud. "You're easy to wind up."

She crossed her arms and pretended to look out her window, but watched his reflection in the glass instead. "Only about some things." Tom parked the car by the curb.

"I look forward to figuring out what those things are." He half reached towards her and for a moment she expected him to tug on a lock of her hair, but instead he hurried from the car, walking around to her side before she could even get her seatbelt off. She looked down at her purse, as if gathering up her things took all of her attention, but couldn't help but look up at him at the last, slipping her hand into his as he held it out to her. It was a fairly low car, she reasoned, and it saved her from having to lean forward as she stood which would, after all, have meant her headbutting him in the crotch, though that was his own fault for standing so close.

She managed to turn off her inner monologue by the time she was standing upright, looking around the quiet street of brick row houses and semidetached homes, mature but well pruned trees between the lots. He let go of her hand as they walked to his door, just at the edge of a row. Once inside the small front entryway she reached up, scratched lightly at the stained glass inlay. It was real, heavy textured red and orange glass the main colors, thick leading separating it from the smaller blues and greens.

"Yeah, it's real." He had his foot up on the step, unlacing his boots, looking back at her.

"Sorry, I just," she stuck her hands in her pockets. _Sorry, I just can't help but touch things that catch my eye sometimes_ really was not the right message.

"It's fine." He put his boots on a mat near the wall, next to a battered pair of trainers and a tiny set of rain boots. "You don't have to take yours off, it's just a habit."

"It's alright." She toed off her shoes, followed him up the stairs. They were covered in grey carpet, industrial and plain, and she hoped that the rest of the house would live up to the charming promise of the front door.

He looked back over his shoulder. "Maybe I should tease you about Portland some more."

"Why?"

He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "You seem nerved up. Maybe I should tell you that no one has ever heard of your Portland. I don't think you're really from there."

She laughed in spite of herself. "What the hell?"

"That's better.” He paused, looking down at her. “This is probably not the right time to ask you this, but are you allergic to dogs?”

“No, not at all. Do you have a dog?”

“I do. He’s a gentle giant but he gives some people a fright when they first see him.” 

“Should I be prepared for him to jump on me?” She thought of the uncouth dog that some of Sarah’s friends had brought around weeks ago. 

“No, I’ve raised him better than that,” Tom said.

“Alright then, I’m sure we’ll get on.”

Tom smiled as he opened the door. “Then come on in."

Despite the apparent age of the building the flat itself was airy, with high ceilings and a broad central living area flanked by the kitchen on one side and a hallway that seemed to lead to the bedrooms on the other. 

The corner of the sofa was covered in a blanket similar to the one in the car, and a large black dog was curled up there, lifting his head as Tom walked into the room. 

“Hiya Max,” Tom said as he walked over.

“His name is Max?” Shannon said, laughing to herself.

“Yeah. It didn’t really seem right to blurt out to your friend, oh, that’s my dog’s name.” Max rested his head on the arm of the sofa as Tom scratched behind his ears. “Told you I’d be right home,” Tom said to the dog. He looked over his shoulder at Shannon. “I should tell you, he understands a lot of what we say.”

“Of course,” Shannon said, noting the way Max lifted his head to look at her, tilting his head to see around Tom. He had round bright eyes and a long muzzle, just beginning to go white at the sides.

“Max, say hello to Shannon.” Tom pointed at the ground near Shannon’s feet and Max unfolded himself from his blanket nest and lowered himself to the floor, walking over and stopping about a foot from her. Tom walked over to the kitchen island but Max barely gave him a glance, looking up at Shannon.

“Hello Max,” she said quietly. She slowly moved her hand towards him, and he stretched his neck out to sniff the back of her hand. She held still as he sat back, then laughed as he offered her his paw. She took his paw gently in her hand and shook, noting that he looked over at Tom with his mouth open, clearly pleased with himself, as he put his foot back down.

“Show-off,” Tom said fondly. “I didn’t tell him to do that, by the way.” Tom opened a cabinet above the stove and took out a bag. “Max, come.” 

Max trotted into the kitchen and sat at Tom’s feet, accepting a bone-shaped treat that he ate in two bites, looking up at Tom with big eyes when he was done. 

“One more,” Tom said, holding it out. “Then you’re done.” Max took this one more delicately in his teeth, carrying it to the open crate in the corner of the kitchen and settling in before he started chewing. Tom sealed the bag and put it away, bringing his thumb to his mouth as he turned around. When he realized what he was doing he froze, lowering his hand and wiping his thumb on his jeans.

“I’ve never actually eaten one of his biscuits,” Tom said. “They’re coated in this barbecue sauce flavor and it gets everywhere but it’s actually not bad.”

“I don’t mind,” Shannon said. “Though I can’t say I’m keen to try it myself.”

"Yeah, about that,” he said. “I’ve got no proper food in, just menus." He opened a drawer in the worktop island that separated the kitchen area from the living room and took out a handful. "Thai is the closest."

"Thai sounds good." She reached for the menu, skimming over the list of dishes. There were few that she recognized, only drunken noodle and pad thai. "What do you usually get?" The menu was missing some corners and something had been spilled on it long ago, so it was clearly a favorite.

"Pad thai, with prawns." He was leaning his elbows on the worktop, stretching his back, bowing it up like a cat. She found herself looking back at the menu but still watching him out of the corner of her eye.

"I like pad thai too, but with chicken." She handed him the menu, wondering if she was supposed to hand him money right then, or later, or not at all. 

"Good, I was afraid you were going to be some sort of Thai food expert and bust my chops for ordering the easy stuff."

She shrugged. "It's good. I like it. I don't need to impress you with my esoteric Thai food knowledge."

He leaned against the edge of the island, phone in hand. "You have some esoteric Thai food knowledge?"

"Actually no."

He smiled and almost laughed, a face she had seen him make a few times before. It showed his teeth, wet and smooth and bright white under the incandescent hanging lamps, and she had a sudden sense memory of how smooth they'd felt under her tongue. She looked away, at the tastefully wood-covered appliances in his kitchen rather than at him, trying to guess which tall cabinet was actually hiding the fridge.

"Did you want something to drink?" He followed her gaze, then went to the fridge before she could answer. It wasn't the cabinet she'd guessed after all. "I've got almost nothing in, except water and apple juice."

Nearly one whole shelf in the fridge was filled with a familiar green bottle. "I'd love some Pellegrino water, if you don't mind."

"Of course." He poured them both a glass and set hers, and the rest of the bottle, next to her on the island, and she sat down on a high stool, toes curling around one of the rungs as she drank. "Did you want anything else with your pad thai?"

"No, that'll be plenty, thanks."

After he'd ordered his he turned to her suddenly. "How hot did you want yours?"

"Do they do it in stars?" 

"Yeah."

"Half a star." She held her hand out, making a tiny pinching motion, even though the person making her food couldn't see her. "Half."

Tom repeated it into the phone. "Half a star." He paused while it was repeated back to him. "Yes, half a star. Thanks.”

Tom confirmed his address and hung up, bringing his drink around to her side of the island. "If you don't like Thai food, we really could have had just about anything else. I mean, I’ll still get you something else if you prefer.”

"I do like Thai food though. just don't like the spicy part of the sauce."

"That's kind of what the sauce is, though."

She shook her head. "The peanut part of the sauce is sweet, the lime is sour, and there's something else. It's not just spicy, unless you go around ordering like ten stars just to prove what a badass you are."

"I'm not a badass, I just don't ask the chef to show my food to a chili from across the room."

"That would be ideal! They could just open the jar of peppers and let the heat sort of waft over the food." She followed him into the living room, where the light hardwood floor was covered by a thick berber rug, her feet nearly sinking into the surface. "I used to work in a natural food store and the heat from the birdseye peppers was so bad my eyes would water when I had to open the jar to fill it. I wanted goggles."

He sat down on the sofa and she recognized it from the photo he'd sent of himself and Louis. It was long, and when she settled into her corner she felt like he was oddly far away. It was comfortable, covered in a light tan leather, and she cradled her glass carefully in her hands, afraid of spilling.

He moved Max’s blanket before he sat down, throwing it over the armchair nearby. "Was that when you decided you didn't like chillis?"

"No, I tried spicier food, and most people don't cook with birds eye chillis anyway, I just never liked that kind of spice. I don't mind a bit of chilli but more than that and my mouth just goes numb. The first time someone gave me a habanero pepper I really thought I'd been poisoned."

"Really?"

"Truly, I did." She shifted carefully, holding her glass against her leg.

"Don't worry about a bit of water. Louis has spilled everything that it is possible for a two year old child to spill on this sofa."

"Does he not have a sippy cup?"

"He does, but he's a clever boy who has figured out that you can twist the top off." He reached out and ran his hand over the center cushion, and a mark that she had taken to be part of the pattern of the leather showed up more clearly as a water stain. She had leaned forward naturally to see it more clearly, their heads only inches apart until he leaned back. "So, at some point, you decided that you preferred sweet rather than spicy."

For a moment she felt off balance, as if the room had tilted, then took a sip of her water and felt righted. "If you're talking about noodles." She held his gaze, determined that he was going to be the one to look away. He did, but not before smiling, quickly, as if he was sharing a joke only with himself.

"I actually do have a DVD of the original Batman shows," he said, standing up and walking over to his entertainment center. "You need to see at least one of them." He loaded a disc into the player and returned to the sofa, nudging the ottoman closer before he sat down.

Tom propped his feet up and looked over at her. "Coming over?"

She set her drink on the floor. "I could do that." She pretended to consider it. "Can I put my feet on the sofa?"

"This sofa has had Louis and Max on it, there's not much you can't do to it."

"Ok, good then." She slid over to him, propping her feet up and to one side so she naturally leaned towards him. He already had his arm along the back of the sofa, and let it settle down over her back as she slipped one arm behind his back, the other propped up on her own thigh. It was a sustainable position, she thought, minimal risk for limbs falling asleep, but it did put her quite a bit lower than him, her head leaning on his upper arm if she let herself. She did, tilting her head up towards him. "Hi."

"Hello." He kissed her, a quick warm brush of his lips against hers. "Was wondering when I'd get to do that. It didn't seem like it would have been a good idea in front of your house."

She laughed as she leaned against him once more. "Good choice, there." She wanted more, the memory of the night before still keen in her mind, but there was also the fact that she was completely comfortable, leaning against his arm, and then there was the hunger, literally a gnawing annoyance at this point.

"Maybe I should kiss you again, seeing as how you dislike spice so much." He kissed the top of her head and she leaned her head back, not making any effort to move closer, letting him come to her. This time he licked quickly along her upper lip and she felt that simple touch like a jolt down her spine, shivering as she opened her mouth. He felt it, must have, his arm tightening around her, held even closer to his side.

They both jumped when the music on the DVD menu looped back to its louder beginning, and he pulled away from her slowly.

"Guess I may as well start this."

"I'm absolutely on tenterhooks."

He laughed softly as he started it, his hand running up and down her side once before settling over her hip.

She did her best to actually pay attention. It was part of the cultural zeitgeist, after all, and she had fond memories of her father watching reruns on cable, and trying to get her interested as well. Then again, he had also been fond of Rocky and Bullwinkle, and she had never been able to get into those either, the humor now composed of jokes she'd heard a thousand times. Knowing that it was their origin and not an imitation just hadn't made them more enjoyable from anything other than a strangely academic standpoint.

Batman wound up being about the same, though she was able to look up to Tom, surreptitiously, watched him evidently enjoying it. She found herself watching the picture for the set and costume design, the way that the colors had been chosen for their appearance on the older film.

The doorbell rang just as the end credits were starting, and Tom gently disengaged himself to go answer it. The nagging question of whether or not she was supposed to offer to pay for her own food was finally at hand, and she sat up straight to lean over the back of the couch as he walked away.

"Do you want," she started to ask, but he shook his head.

"No, you're good." He left the door open as he ran down the stairs, and she sat on the edge of the sofa, then picked up her drink and his and moved them to the table. She was sitting there when he returned.

"Not keen to see more Batman?" He set the carrier bag down on the center of the table, began unpacking it.

"I have to admit, no, not really," she said. "Though I'm clear on the fact that he can't fly, now."

"Good, my work here is done." He looked down at the foil lid of the container in his hand, then grinned and pushed it towards her. "This one is yours."

There was a carefully drawn five-pointed star with a line down the center, only half colored in. "I guess they don't get that request a lot, maybe?"

"Maybe not." He opened his container, then went to the cabinets to get real plates and forks. "You know," he said, turning around with them in his hands, "maybe I should kiss you again before we eat, just in case this meal puts me right out of commission."

"I think I'll be able to handle it," she demurred, but sat up straight as he walked back to her, let him cup the back of her head and lean her back so he could kiss her, demanding, this time, searching, almost taking her breath away as he seemed to suddenly fill up her mouth. She heard herself gasp as they separated, almost wished she could have taken it back, but for the quietly satisfied look on his face.

He brought another bottle of water to the table and then sat down, serving himself. "I'd offer you a prawn, but," he sighed.

She had to laugh as she transferred some of the food over to her own plate. "This is a source of endless amusement for you, isn't it? You'd better watch out, I will find your weak spot and I will tease you mercilessly."

"Good luck with that." He smirked at her, then began eating.

"What, really, you don't think you have a weak spot?" She was tossing the noodles around with her fork, not quite able to start eating until he explained that supercilious look.

"More of a forest for the trees issue, I think," he said. "You'd be hard pressed to find just one spot."

"Ok." She turned back to her food-- he hadn't said it in any way that made her think he was fishing for a compliment or reassurance, but it still seemed at odds with what little she did know of him.

"Do you have any tattoos?" he asked. He had arranged his features into the most innocent mask possible, given the question. 

"No, not a one," she said after she'd swallowed her first bite. It was perfect, just the barest hint of spice to offset the sweetness of the peanut and fish sauce. It was an easy enough truth. If she'd had one somewhere hidden then she would have had to have lied, or else perhaps piqued his interest in something she wasn't quite ready to show him, but this was straightforward enough.

"Well, then you wouldn't know that they hurt. Everyone says oh, it's just a little scratching, but it burns, it feels like a bad sunburn, only worse, if someone was scratching at your sunburn with their fingernails."

"I've heard that they hurt," she said. "I don't need to experience everything to know that there are some things I don't care to do."

"That's why you don't have any, because it would hurt?"

"No, because I could never think of anything that I wanted on me permanently. I don't dislike them." She put another bite in her mouth as much to stop herself from talking as anything. When it came to his mysterious and apparently numerous tattoos, she found that she did want to see them, count them, and hear the story behind every one of them. It was more than simply not disliking them. 

"Well good." They ate in silence for a moment, until Tom seemed to remember what he'd been saying. "So I started getting tattoos when I was a teenager, because I thought, well, everyone knows these hurt, and I'll look tough. Then no one will mess with me."

She thought carefully before she responded to that. "Because, from the off, you were afraid that people would want to mess with you."

"Right. Scrawny fucking kid with an attitude, it wasn't that big of a stretch to think that someone might." He looked away for a moment as he ate, then rolled his eyes at her. "Don't give me that look."

"What look?" She felt her eyebrows wrinkle up, wondering what he'd seen.

"I was scrawny. I still am, really. This," he gestured to himself, "this is for a job. When I'm not working at this kind of a job I'm perfectly content to let it all go. I'm not Hugh Jackman."

She laughed, surprised that he'd actually be comparing himself to other actors, but then again, maybe not that surprising at all. "That's fine, really. I do believe you."

"Good."

As she ate she thought about what he'd said, that he'd had the tattoos put on to dissuade other people from messing with him. "Did it work?"

"It might have, if I'd given it a chance. I tended to just go after the biggest surliest looking guy in the bar, or wherever I was at the time."

"That worked better, didn't it?" She held her glass out and he refilled it, letting his fingers brush against hers as he handed it back to her.

"I think you're the first person to make that assumption."

She found herself searching his face for clues, that he was put off by her assessments, or irritated, but really, it seemed that he said what he meant without any subtext that she could find, no sarcasm or irony.

"Why, what do people usually think?"

"They usually assume I got my arse handed to me endlessly."

She shrugged as she assembled another bite on her fork, cutting a larger piece of chicken into thirds so she could pair it with the noodles. "I think you probably did, some of the time at least, if you were as scrawny as you say, but yeah, going after the biggest guy sort of puts a brand on you, doesn't it? Like, you're not to be messed with."

"That's what I was going for."

She thought of her phone, silent in her pocket, so far, and the fact that she felt completely at ease sitting at a table miles from her home, talking with a man who by his own admission used to try and beat the crap out of strangers, who had narrowly missed jail, who had been into hard drugs and alcohol probably before he was even legal to be served. She searched her mind and her gut for a moment, asking herself if she was an idiot, perhaps, if maybe she'd had her good sense overridden by desire, but her own conscience felt clear. Tom was describing something that had happened in the past, not how he lived his life at present.

"You ever do anything like that?" Tom asked.

She shook her head. "I'm familiar with the concept, though."

"Yeah?" He'd pushed about half his noodles off to one side, leaving just the prawns in the middle of the plate.

"When I was about twelve, my dad and I were in the car and the radio was on. G Gordon Liddy had a talk show that had just started up." She paused, waiting for a spark of recognition. 

"One of the guys who broke into Watergate." He cocked an eyebrow at her, challenging her to say why she thought he might not know.

"America's scandals aren't necessarily the world's scandals," she said.

"We've all seen Frost/Nixon."

"Right. Anyway, we were in the car when Liddy's talk show came on and my dad was pissed. I mean, he was angry, so I asked him why, and he explained that he was irritated, that was his favorite word for when he was angry, you didn't want to make my dad irritated, that someone could parlay being a criminal into being a successful radio personality. He wasn't famous for any good work he'd done under Nixon, he was famous for overseeing a break-in. So I was young, and I didn't really understand why Watergate had been such a big deal if no one had died, and I said that maybe he was a good guy who'd been caught up in some bad stuff. He disagreed but he was quiet for a while, and as we drove over the bridge over the river near our house he told me, when G Gordon Liddy went to jail, the first thing he did on his first day there was break a chair over another inmate's head. He didn't elaborate, so I asked why, and he said, so everyone would know he wasn't anybody's bitch."

She watched his face move from polite interest to disbelief, at the end, smiling but a bit shocked. "You were how old when he said this to you?"

"Twelve."

Tom leaned back, shaking his head for a moment. "Did you know what he meant?"

She tried to figure out how to put into words the change that had taken place in her mind, pushing her plate just a bit away from herself as she spoke. "It's weird, I wouldn't have known if you'd have asked me just before that conversation, but I sort of intuitively knew after that. I remembered it for a long time so later I must have put it all together at some point." She finished her water. "I knew enough not to ask him to clarify."

"Smart girl." Tom reached for his own takeout container and began scraping his noodles into it. "Sorry, were you all done?"

"Yeah." She took her own container and put her uneaten portion back in. A combination of nerves and feeling a bit like she was being watched, and the fact that Tom was finished, had her feeling like she'd had enough, though usually she would have had no compunction about eating the entire thing.

Once the food was put away Tom poured the rest of the water into their glasses, looked at her over the rim of his own as he drank.

"Moment of truth, Shannon. Are you as sensitive as you claim to be?"

She slipped off her chair and let him follow her around the table, keeping it between them. "I never claimed to be _sensitive._ "

"But you must be, with your little half star." He had his hands on the tabletop, lightly, skimming along as he followed her, getting closer.

"I think I'll be able to handle a kiss," she said. She looked at his mouth, trying to keep up as he circled more rapidly. His lips looked even fuller, almost swollen, and she wondered how hot his food actually had been.

"You think?" He rounded the corner, then pounced, picking her up against him for a moment and moving her away from the edge of the table, spinning her around until they were nose to nose at the edge of the kitchen. She had shrieked when he first caught her, now found herself breathing fast, hand grasping on to his shoulder for balance, heart still pounding even though the chase had only been a game. She heard a jingle of tags, and an almost silent tread on the floor as Max came over to investigate. 

"Yeah, I think." She leaned forward and pressed her mouth against his. His lips felt a little warmer than she'd remembered, but that could have been imagination. She traced his lower lip with the tip of her tongue, slow, experimental, and found nothing other than the taste of clean skin, then dipped inside. His mouth was hotter, slightly, most of the oil from the peppers washed away when he drank but some of it still lingered, on his tongue, mostly, less along the smooth walls of his cheeks, none at all along the ticklish ridges of his palate. She got lost in searching, jumped a little when he really kissed her back.

He pulled away, just enough to speak. "It's alright?"

She nodded, still a little off balance. "It's fine." She picked her head up, but he was looking over her shoulder.

“We’re ok Max,” he said. “Shannon is ok.”

Shannon looked down to see that Max was looking between the two of them intently. “I’m fine,” she said, smiling as Max gave her a long slow bow, his paws sliding on the wooden floor. “I’m not sure it’s playtime for you,” she said.

“Don’t want to get him all riled up,” Tom agreed. When he walked to the kitchen cabinets both Max and Shannon followed. “Here, you can give him a nice pig ear to clean his teeth with.” He handed her the dried ear, Max watching it attentively.

“If you lick your fingers after handling this, I will be a bit bothered,” Shannon said, accepting it. “Should I just hand it over?”

“Max, sit,” Tom said. Max sat at her feet. “Wait.” Max’s eyebrows moved up and down as he looked at the pig’s ear. “Wait.” Tom nudged her. “You can hold it out to him.”

“Won’t that be like teasing him?” she asked.

“It’s good for him to practice.” 

She held the ear out, watching him. Max took a deep breath, huffing, but didn’t move. 

“Max, go ahead,” Tom said, and Max moved his head forward just enough to gently take the pig’s ear from Shannon’s hand.

Tom dropped to one knee, reaching out to scratch Max behind the ears. “Good boy Max. You’re a good boy.” He pointed to the crate. “Go to bed, Max.” Max went to his bed in the crate, turning round so he was looking out the open door as he began gnawing on his snack.

“Does he mind being in the crate?” Shannon asked as Tom washed his hands.

“No, it’s like a little home for him. If I take him to work I try to take the crate too. Then it’s his home from home.” He dried his hands on a tea towel as Shannon washed her hands. 

“Did you never have a dog?” he asked as he handed her the towel.

“I never did. My parents had a dog when I was born but he died when I was really small and I don’t remember him. They decided not to get another one until my sister and I were older and by that point it was obvious that the household wasn’t really stable enough to bring in a pet.”

“Good on your parents for realizing that though I’d say overall that sounds like it sucked.”

“Long ago and far away,” she said, shrugging. “Once I moved to London I traveled back and forth enough that I didn’t want a pet anyway. I was never one of those kids who just deep down wanted a dog so I didn’t suffer over it at all.”

“Well, good,” he said. Something about the set of his shoulders, the way he held his arms, made her think that he was offering her a hug. As she stepped forward she realized that maybe she’d been wrong but he leaned towards her anyway, wrapping his arms around her back and squeezing her. She closed her eyes for a moment, just enjoying the peace of being so still, the flat quiet except for the sound of Max gnawing and shifting against his little bed.

Tom loosed his hold on her and slid his hands down, resting them over her hips.

"We should put a film in," he said, walking her backwards.

"Why," she asked, letting herself be led, feet sliding along. "Are your parents going to pop in and ask what we're doing sitting there in the dark?"

"No, it's more that if I don't, I will sit on that sofa all night with you, and I'm sorry to say that I do actually have to go to work in the morning."

"Aha." She sat down on the sofa as he went to the DVD player, looking over his shoulder as he put the Batman disc away. 

"Are you sure we're done with this?"

She crossed her arms over her chest. "You seem a little too interested in it, to be honest."

He laughed, sliding it back onto the shelf. "Something we've both seen, then?" He pulled out a case. "Please tell me you have seen this, otherwise I will have to sit next to you like a monk to make sure you do watch it."

She steeled herself to lie, if needed, relaxed when she saw the familiar cover. "Many a time," she said. 

"Really? You're not just saying that?" He shook the Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels case at her. "I take cinema very seriously."

"Chill, Winston. I've seen it a dozen times."

He nodded, satisfied, and set it up to start playing before he returned to her side. She'd taken the corner of the sofa that he'd been sitting in previously, her right elbow leaning on the arm. He paused, looking down at her.

"Am I meant to take the other corner?" He'd discarded his jacket ages ago, and now the navy tee-shirt had folded up around the waistband of his jeans, a thick belt threaded through the loops. She hooked her fingers in it and pulled him down, and he let himself be pulled, grinning at her.

"No, you are not meant to take the other corner," she said as he looped his arm around her back to her side, pulling her close. 

It was a little awkward, leaning to her left, both of them having to lean forward a bit to compensate. As they were of one height neither of them could simply bend down. She shifted, trying to lean back into him to ease the strain on her neck, but it was still a stretch. She pushed away from him slightly and sighed, almost to herself.

"Oh, fuck it." She rested her hand on his far shoulder, pulled herself over so she was sitting on his legs, again, her knees still taking most of her weight. In his brighter flat, earlier in the evening, it felt unaccountably different to how it had felt in her studio, a little more real, not dulled or softened by fatigue and the aftermath of her own show-fueled adrenaline. He settled his hands demurely on her lower back, over her shirt.

"You really like this, don't you?" he asked, thumbs rubbing small circles against her spine.

"It beats leaning, and it means I can look at you," she said, tracing her thumbs down the sides of his neck to his collar bones. She wiggled her right thumb, teasing his shirt away from his neck. "Do you not care for it?"

He rested his head against the back of the sofa, smiling up at her. "No, I like it very much."

"Well, good." She rested her hands on the back of the sofa as she leaned over him, felt him tighten his arms to pull her closer. He kept his hips still, but there was still a sense that they were sliding closer to something, a couple of layers of denim not all that much, really, no longer able to tell if the heat she felt was entirely from her own blood or radiating off of him as well. She turned her head for a moment to take a deep breath, the air in the room that had felt warm when she'd first entered now feeling cool against her face. Tom took that moment to trace up the side of her neck with his mouth, just slightly open, teeth barely touching against her skin until he kissed the underside of her jaw, lingering for a moment before moving down just a fraction of an inch, pausing, breath against her skin, barely touching, as if he was looking for something. He made his decision, lips and tongue working soft but quick over her pulse point.

Her reaction was immediate, spark of heat there bursting through her, muscles over her stomach twitching, hard, enough to make her back bend forward, wind knocked out of her lungs for a moment, in a rush, a single high pitched breath that warbled as she tried too late to hold it back, not nearly quiet enough to be drowned out by the film. She felt rather than heard Tom's deep, satisfied rumble, echoing up through his chest into his shoulders, her fingers clenched over his collar bones.

She leaned forward, mouth claiming the side of his neck, tongue pressing hard against his pulse in retaliation, tracing up behind the soft flesh of his ear, nipping at his earlobe as she turned to rasp her teeth against the rougher skin of his jaw.

He pushed her away gently, fingers stroking against her cheek as he held her chin. "Hey, gentle. No marks."

She scowled, sitting back almost on his knees, keeping him at arm's length, the heat that had flared so fast almost doused. "I'm not a damned teenager."

"I know." He had the grace, at least, to look contrite.

She loosened her hold on his clavicles, fingers dipping under the collar of his shirt. "Don't leave any marks, says the guy covered in tattoos."

"Hey now." He leaned back, pliant as she tugged the shirt down on just the right, revealing the tattoo she'd already seen. "My boss already knows about the tattoos. Bite marks, now, that would be a different matter."

"I don't know about the tattoos." She pulled the collar out, but kept herself back, not looking down his shirt.

"You know about them," he said, holding entirely still.

"I know of them," she corrected him, letting go of the shirt. "Aren't you going to show me?" She felt the same sort of fast twitch in her abdomen when he grasped the edge of his shirt as if to pull it off.

"You going to take your shirt off too?" he asked.

She crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back a little farther. "I haven't got anything to show you."

He laughed, but pulled the shirt over his head anyway. "In your own time then," he said while it was still over his head, then tossed it aside.

The sheer number and density of them stopped her for a moment, her eyes moving from one to the other, unsure of where to look. There didn't seem to be a cohesive picture, but even for all that they didn't look entirely random. She blinked, looked again, and an entirely different feeling hit her, a wave like a tingling ache that spread from her shoulders to her hips, a sudden need to feel his chest against hers, skin against skin, could almost feel the way he'd pull her in close, the broadness of his chest meaning there'd be no cold margins left once he wrapped his arms around her. She coughed, trying to hide the sudden want, bringing her hands up to her face and pressing her breasts against her folded arms, hoping it looked even a little natural.

"Wow." She ran her palms down her thighs, the urge to just rip her shirt off barely contained, finally. She reached out and touched the densest looking one, a union flag just over his left pec. "I always think skin with a tattoo on it will feel different," she said, pressing down. He sat still, hands on the sofa at his sides.

"Does it?"

She closed her eyes and traced her fingers over it, then opened them, checking to see if she could tell where she was. "No." But it looked so saturated, almost wet, like paper that had been soaked with ink. She could almost smell the sweet but metallic scent, could just imagine if it were paper marked that darkly. She held his right shoulder and leaned forward, kissing the edge of the flag, feeling no difference between the ink and his skin, then licked at it, just gently, tip of her tongue tracing the straight line.

He tasted slightly of salt, but nothing else, no tang of ink or chemical under his skin, nothing leaching through. She broadened her tongue, keeping her head bent, his breath ragged above her. When she licked along his collarbone, dipping her tongue into his suprasternal notch, his hands flew up to her back, fingers scratching against her shirt.

"Shannon," his voice was too deep and quiet to tell, was it a warning or a request, and she took it as the latter, barely letting her teeth graze him as she traced the shape of the letters in his padre fiero tattoo. She wondered about the impulse that would have made him go under the needle so many times, once he was old enough to realize that he didn't need the tattoos to scare anyone away.

He tightened his arms around her back, shifted as he pulled her in closer, rasp and pressure right over the seam of her jeans, easy slide up closer to him. She let her weight settle on him fully, felt him slot perfect against her, firm steady line of heat, even through all that fabric. He let his hands slide down to the top of her ass, fingers hooked against her waistband, barely dipping under to press against her skin as he pushed down, almost too much, her flesh feeling swollen, almost tender. She pushed back against his hands and he let go, but slid his hands as far up the back of her shirt as the fabric would allow.

"Can I?" he tugged at the shirt and she leaned back just enough to give him access to the buttons. She didn't help, just looked down at his fingers undoing them, nimble and careful. He slid the shirt back off her arms and she forced herself to look at him, watched him look at her from collarbone to waist, resisted the urge to suck her stomach in. He brought his hands around, tracing the decolletage on her bra, fingers skimming under the plain black fabric just a bit, pressing down on soft skin but not lifting her out.

"You're lovely." Before she could respond he had his hands between her shoulder blades, pulling her tight against his chest. She sighed, letting herself ease against him, leaning into the warm sturdy bulk of his chest, arms wrapping around his shoulders. She left one hand lying flat against his neck as he traced his fingers feather light against her spine, making her shiver.

"So good." She felt and heard the words at her ear, so soft she wondered if he'd meant to say them. Her knees, though, were pressed against the back of the sofa, hips extended past the point of a comfortable stretch.

"Tom, I'm sorry but I've got to move." She pushed herself away reluctantly as he slid his hands round to her hips, pressing against the places that hurt. "Yeah, there."

"Sorry, I didn't realize." He had his arms wrapped around her more loosely, leaned to one side and laid her down on the sofa, her legs straightening out naturally as he rested a knee to either side of her, his hands just above her shoulders as he held himself up. "Is this alright?"

"Yes." She let herself sink into the sofa as he leaned forward, following her down, laying himself over her carefully, his weight still mostly on his elbows and knees even as she felt his skin against hers again.

She turned her head as he kissed the side of her neck, leaning back, presenting her skin from shoulder to jaw and he obliged her by tracing his tongue there, stubble on his chin scratching against her. She turned to say something sharp about him leaving marks, but he stole the breath from her mouth when he kissed her, grinning as she tried to regain her equilibrium.

He had settled down a little, not crushing her, not nearly, but enough to let her know where he was. She tried to look down at him as he kissed her throat, moving down slowly, lazy, his hands still at her shoulders, thumbs brushing against her skin as he adjusted himself, moving lower.

He looked up at her, catching her eye before he licked along the edge of her bra, tongue pressing down into soft skin, but not slipping underneath. She smiled, arched her back, straining against the cup, willing him to take the initiative, to get her out of it. Her arms were nearly pinned anyway, just barely able to bend at the elbows to stroke her hands down the sides of his back, light, reveling in the sensation of so much compact muscle under smooth skin.

She closed her eyes as he took his mouth off of her, jumped when he pressed his closed mouth hard against her nipple, trying to push herself closer. He opened his mouth and lifted her in on his tongue, pressing her hard against the roof of his mouth, swiftly soaked fabric a rough counterpoint to the smooth pull of his mouth and the gentler swipes of his tongue. As he pulled back he tightened his jaw, teeth skimming over the fabric, holding her tight in his teeth, not quite biting, but nearly, her breath panting fast in her chest as he held her there. When she opened her eyes he was looking at her, waiting, for what she wasn't sure. He slid back and closed his teeth at the same time, catching the fabric but not her skin in them. She shrieked, as much from the sudden jolt of fear (a spike of it, at first, that had flashed through her and then settled in the pit of her stomach like a pleasant heat) as from the sudden jab of sensation that seemed to connect her chest to her pelvis.

She had pulled a hand away from his back and clamped it over her mouth then, and he smiled, slowly, his lower lip clearly swollen from rubbing against the cloth.

"You don't have to do that." He took her wrist gently and put it up over her head, keeping his hand there as he leaned back down, pressing her hand into the sofa cushion.

As he slid himself up he dragged his cock hard against her, settling over her stomach, and she rolled her hips from side to side, just to get a clearer picture of how he felt, covered in cloth but still so warm, smooth rounded ridge of him pressing in like a promise of something imminent. He made a soft noise at that, more than a sigh but quieter than a growl, nearly lost in the sound of her own breath and her heart in her ears. There were too many things to feel, to keep track of-- the circle of his fingers against her wrist, the leather of the sofa warming under her hand where it was pressed in, harder now that most of his weight was on that hand, and the immediate blunt pressure of his fingers against the curve of her breast as he lifted her out of her bra, leaving the fabric there, twisted against her ribs, pushing her up towards his mouth. He pulled her in quickly, pressing her to the roof of his mouth, pulling hard until she felt swollen and tight before pressing down with the tip of his tongue, mouth still closed as he pulled back, loosening his mouth before he traced a circle around her crinkled flesh, admiring her for a moment before looking up at her.

"Yes," she whispered, not sure what she was answering, didn't remember him asking a question. He kept his hand a firm half circle over her wrist as he reached over to her still covered breast, twisting the cloth away, tucking it under her so she matched, at least. This time when he leaned forward it was to feel his mouth on one side and his fingers on the other, sometimes mimicking and sometimes not, push-pull of want and have. Every time she tried to move she felt his hand against her wrist, implacable, not grasping, just holding. He had slid further up, lying firmly on her now, hips no longer able to twist and rock against him. She moved her knees as if to let him lie in between them, thought about wrapping her legs around his waist, but he just bent his legs more firmly, held a knee to either side of her thighs, trapping her entirely. Once she realized that she was held by him, knees and hands, she froze.

He held still too, lifting his head slowly, his free hand flat and warm against her breast, just covering it, as if to leave it bare would be more disturbing than not touching her at all. He rested his cheek lightly on her other breast, stubble still against damp skin as he watched her. She tested him, shimmying her legs against the sofa, back sticking to the cushion now, but she was held fast. 

"Let me up." She heard the words before she was even sure she was going to say them, and he was letting go of her, standing by the side of the sofa in an instant, so quickly that the change in perspective made her dizzy. Then there was an arm behind her shoulders, easing her up, Tom sitting beside her with his back to the arm of the sofa so she could lean against his chest as she regained her equilibrium.

The room was quiet except for the film, and she found herself watching it for a moment, brought back by Tom's hands sliding over her shoulders. 

"Too much?"

"No. Well, at the moment it was, yes." She looked over her shoulder, twisting away from him. As she moved she became acutely aware of the fact that she was hanging out of her bra, tried to demurely scoop herself back in, adjusting the straps as she spoke. "Just needed to be sure you'd let me up."

"Of course." He ran his hand over the top of her arm, lingering with his hand over hers before he sat back. She reached out and traced over his chest, one fingernail tracing the comedy and tragedy mask tattoo.

"Movie's almost over," she pointed out.

"I know." He held his arm out and she took the hint, budging up closer to him, sitting across his legs, tucked into the corner of the sofa. "The timing is terrible." He was kissing her again before she had a chance to ask if he meant just the film or, if he meant the fact that he wouldn't see her again until he came back from America. She tried to put it out of her mind as the music over the end credits started. She had just slipped her hand between his knees, pressing down hard against the inside of his right knee, daring herself to slide her hand up, when her phone chimed, ridiculously loud in the nearly quiet flat.

He sighed so deeply that she rose and fell with his chest. She stood up and took her shirt when he handed it to her, pulling it on as she turned away from him.

"Not that she can see me," Shannon said, not even sure, for the moment, that it was Max.

"She might," Tom said, pulling his own shirt on and walking over to the television, silencing the repetitive music over the credits.

Once she was dressed she sat back down on the sofa, opening her phone. Tom was in the kitchen, standing by the refrigerator, rubbing his forehead. She wondered if he had a headache as she looked down at her phone.

_Do you have a moment to call me?_

Shannon looked back at Tom, who was taking something out of the freezer. "She wants me to call her."

"You can go in Louis' room, if you like," he said, walking across the living room and opening the door. "It's cleaner than the office, anyway."

"Thanks. Won't be a moment." She slipped inside and shut the door, looking around. Louis' room was all simple shades of blue and white, a bold blue and red comforter in the crib with a train on it, and plastic bins full of blocks and other simple toys. She sat on the floor next to the bins and pulled out a random arch-shaped block and turned it over in her hand as she dialed.

"Hi Shannon." Max was somewhere quiet, either in her own room, or the others had left.

"Hi Max. What's up?" She dragged the edge of the block along the carpet, reversing the weft of the fibers.

"You're obviously ok," Max said, but it still sounded like a question.

"Yes, I am. Everything is fine." In that moment though she thought of Tom's sheer bulk, and she had a greater sympathy, suddenly, for Max's insistence that she check in.

"Look, I'm sorry I'm a nut," Max began, but Shannon cut her off.

"No, you're not crazy."

"Everyone else gave me a hard time."

Shannon smiled a little, imagining it, but feeling bad for her as well. Max didn't take well to being made fun of. "I'm sure you gave it right back. Tell them I don't mind. Tell them I'm _grateful_ , because I am." 

"I know I overreact sometimes."

"You don't though. It's not a sign of sanity to be well adjusted to living in a sick world." She was grateful for the closed door, too, though, wondering what Tom would make of the conversation.

"But you're having a good evening, though?"

"Yeah. Got Thai food, watched a movie."

Max laughed. "You got Thai?"

"Shut up. He thought my half star order was funny."

"Well, it is funny."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll probably be home in a couple of hours," she said. "I'll text you if I'll be later, ok?"

"Sounds good. I'm going back downstairs now and I'm going to tell them that you said I'm not crazy."

"Do that. Goodnight, Max."

"Night Shannon."

She rang off, put the block back in its tub, and smoothed down the carpet before returning to the main room. Tom was sitting at the table, two tall styrofoam cups in the middle of it.

"What's this?"

He had been staring at them, lost in thought, but he smiled as she sat down. "Lassi. I didn't actually order it, but I think Sumalee was worried about you when I gave her your half-star order."

She eyed the cups. "Lassi's Indian."

He shrugged. "They're eclectic." He peeled the lids off the cups. "They're both mango." He pushed one towards her, letting go before she could try to touch his hand. He seemed, suddenly, oddly distant, as if more than just the table were between them.

She tasted her drink, cold and thick from being in the freezer. It was tart, but with a sweetness from the mango. She let it sit on her tongue for a moment, trying to decide if they'd sweetened it with anything but the fruit, decided that if they had it wasn't much. The fibers were short, no stringiness. Whoever had chosen the mangoes had done well.

"That's good." She tilted her cup, watching the way the orange drink coated the sides.

"Yeah, it's nice."

She waited but he didn't say anything else. "It's getting kind of late, I suppose."

"Yeah." He took too large a gulp, wound up wincing at the brain freeze. "Look, I wanted to talk to you."

"What about?" The cup was starting to sweat against her palms.

"Are you seeing anyone?" He looked up at her when he asked, tilting the cup back to get the last of his own drink out of it.

"No." The warmth that had been suffusing her chest began to give way to a cold tendril that felt a lot like disappointment, and she tried to hold it at bay by force of her own will. He hadn't said anything that would preclude him kissing her again, or looking at her like he wanted to hear everything she might ever have to say. It might be that he had never really looked at her like that. She dragged her mind into the present. "Are you?" She asked only because it was the expected thing to do, and not doing it would just be mean spirited.

"No. Not anymore." He had his hands resting on the edge of the table, his palms off the edge and the first two joints of each finger flattened out by the pressure he was putting on them. Even as she waited for the next thing he was going to say she was trying to commit that gesture to memory-- there wasn't a lot of extra flesh on his fingers at all, but it was visible, the fact that they were being pressed flatter than before.

"When did that change?" She took another sip, still enjoying it despite the suddenly fraught atmosphere in the room, or in herself, she corrected herself silently. She had a feeling that if she left the silence long enough he would fill in the blanks, but now it was curiosity instead of charity that kept her talking.

"This morning."

She almost choked, forcing herself to breathe through her nose while she swallowed.

"Well. That's recent." She thought of herself wrapped around him in her studio the night before, wondered if there was a woman who had been on her own that evening without any thought that he might be with someone else. She wondered if her own exuberant happiness had come on the heels of someone else's broken heart and bit down hard on the inside of her lip, trying not to give herself away.

"We weren't exclusive," he said, and some of that panic that had been a hot counterpoint to the coldness still coiling in her chest dissipated. "We never were. I just had a feeling that," he paused, tearing at the styrofoam rim of the cup. "I didn't want to start something with you if I'd have to start it by explaining that there was someone else too."

She weighed her cup in her hand. "And yet, here you are, doing just that." She thought of highschool, of friends calling their significant other just on the verge of seeing someone else, to make it ok. It was just semantics, but the same sort of mental gymnastics that everyone did, to keep themselves on the right side of being a good person.

"Here I am." 

"Why tell me this?" She almost kicked herself, bailing him out again, breaking the silence with a distinct question.

He at least appeared to give it some thought. "It occurred to both of us that there was a chance that you," he shook his head and let his hands fall off the table into his lap. "In the course of the conversation it turned out that I'd made some assumptions about us that weren't quite true, which is why I am having this awkward as arse conversation with you, now."

She was still hearing the bit that he'd left unsaid, presumably _there was a chance that you would be ok with it,_ but then again he was saying that he'd been wrong to assume things, and he was, trying his level best, even if poorly, not to do it again.

"Well, you know what they say about assumptions being the brother of all fuck ups."

The crooked smile she got at that warmed her heart again, made her think that maybe, just maybe things were going to turn out alright.

"Yeah, I'm seeing that now." 

He let the silence wrap around them again, and she thought about what his assumption would have been, who this other woman was. Someone gorgeous, no doubt. Someone he'd met through his work, glamorous, fitting easily into the world he lived in. The thought that just because they'd hit it off so well after their first chance meeting that she'd actually have a chance with him was laughable, really, and now this woman had told him that what he'd thought was a casual thing was something more, to her, and he was having a hard time walking away. Naturally. _Silly Shannon,_ she chided herself, practically hearing the voice in her head, fond but pitying. She felt the corner of her mouth start to twist down, fought it by smiling, a tiny thing that he might not even notice, but real, because it was funny, really, in its way.

"Oh my god." His voice snapped her back to the present.

"What?"

"For a second, you looked just like him. I mean, you don't look like him, but you made the same sort of face I've seen him make before."

"Who, Louis?" She couldn't imagine a small child forcing a wry smile through a sudden frown, but it could happen.

"No, him, the guy I'm talking about right now."

She felt like the whole room tilted for a moment, and she rested her arms on the table to keep her balance. "It's a guy."

"Does that make a difference?"

"Well yeah, a bit." She drained the absolute dregs of her drink, set the cup aside reluctantly. Now it wouldn't be a distraction, unless she decided to pick it into sticky shreds. "Go on. Tell me about your assumptions. Otherwise, what I'm thinking isn't going to mean a tinker’s damn, considering I still don't have the whole story here."

"Ok. Um. I've been seeing him for about two years. The first few times we got together we thought it was just a one off, but then it became something I could sort of count on every few months or so."

"Just every few months?"

"Yeah, about four, five times a year."

She weighed the wisdom of asking, did anyway. "Is that how often you tend to see the people you're dating?"

He shook his head. "We both travel for work, I've got Louis, it was a casual thing, at least at first, and I thought it was to the end, and he was still dating women."

"And you? Were you dating other people?"

He shook his head. "For the last two years or so it's just been him, and the odd date here or there for an event, but it was just for show."

"It's just been him for the last two years, but you didn't think it had become something other than casual?"

"Hey, he was still dating." Tom leaned forward, his voice rising just a fraction. He leaned back, modulating his voice, and she had a feeling that it wasn't really her that he'd been snapping at. "And no. I had other priorities."

"And now?" She felt like she was picking at a wound, like if she pressed too hard he'd decide it wasn't worth it and just chuck her out. She leaned into the feeling rather than away from it. Better to test him now than find out later that she'd been another casual thing.

"Louis is still my priority, but I've got a routine there, have for a while, so." He had peeled off the entire rim of the cup, squishing it into a tiny cube that he dropped into the cup, then pushed away from himself. "I thought I've got a pretty good chance of working out a new routine that could include someone else other than just Louis and I."

"And this guy, potentially, considering you're still talking about him. Can we give him a name, if you don't want to tell me who he is? I feel weird calling him the guy all the time."

"Um yeah, ok. We can call him Ben."

Shannon looked down to hide the sudden smile at that, sure that he'd told her the truth, thinking it would be easier to hit her with a double bluff, to cover any time he might say Ben's name accidentally.

"You realize it's weird, right, that I don't even know who we're talking about?"

"I'm not asking you to date him," Tom pointed out.

"That would be less weird. Well, if he were a woman it would be less weird." She had a sudden urge to put her head down on the table and let her thoughts shake themselves back into something approaching coherence.

"Really."

"Right, ok. Let me sort this out." She had her hands spread out on the table, each of her fingers separate. "If it were a woman, you'd be asking me to be ok, right off the bat, sharing you, sharing your time, which is obviously limited, with a woman I've never seen. In that case it would be less weird if you were a couple, I mean, a couple that were together more than a few times a year, with the both of you saying, I don't know, oooer, Shannon, fancy us a bit of that." She was picking up her fingers and wiggling them as if they were puppets.

He laughed out loud, reaching out to slip his fingers under hers. She let him. "Has that ever happened to you?"

"Not just like that," she admitted.

"But you've been asked out. By a couple."

"Well, yes. Without the leering." She let the silence build up again, silently daring him to ask.

"What did you say?"

"I said no." She took her hand back, setting her hands in her lap. "I didn't fancy them."

"You didn't fancy them, as a couple?"

"I didn't fancy them separately, either. I liked them, but I didn't want to date them." She shrugged. The fact that one of them had lately been her professor would only muddy the waters, and she didn't mention it. "I've never met a woman I would have wanted to date anyway, but the idea didn't repulse me. I just didn't want to." She realized her palms were sweating, ran them down her jeans. "So, Ben. You're seeing him, but you go to break it off and he tells you it wasn't as casual for him as you thought it was, and now you're telling me about him. Why?"

"Because, if I had known, from the off, I would have handled things a little differently."

"Would I still be here, right now?"

"Yes. But this conversation would be a lot more straightforward."

"How so? Not that I think it could get any more convoluted."

"At least you know Ben is a man?"

"Point."

"If I had realized, prior to breaking it off with him, that our relationship, erratic though it is, had potential to be something more than a casual arrangement between friends, I would be saying, Ben and I are together, in this way, and Shannon, I want you in my life also, whatever this may become."

She fought a smile, but knew it had to be obvious that his blunt words, the last of them, anyway, pleased her. "Instead of whatever it is that you've been trying to say here."

"Something like, Ben and I were together, then we weren't, then I realized that we actually could be, meanwhile, Ben is still dating women and I," he ran out of words, apparently, waving a hand between them vaguely, then slumping back in his chair so hard it nearly tipped over, and he wound up clutching the edge of the table, any pretense of cool entirely wiped out.

"Graceful," she said, quietly, referring to both his own assessment of the conversation and his moment with the chair as well. "So this Ben, he wants to keep you as a partner, but not his," she caught herself before she said _primary_ , not sure if that was even the sort of framework Tom had in mind. "Not his one and only."

"Yes. So now I'm in the unenviable position of having to find out, from someone I've essentially just met, what her opinion on polyamory is."

She rubbed her hand over her mouth to hide her smile, feeling somewhat triumphant that he'd finally _said_ it. "It's a position you let him put you in," she reminded him, gently.

"True."

She looked around the flat, what of it she could see without turning her body around. There was a bright plastic dump truck in the corner of the lounge, clearly forgotten by the side of the entertainment center, and then there was the door to Louis' room. Even without Ben, the man who was, at the moment, no more than an idea in her head, there were already more than two people to consider in the relationship, nascent as it was.

The very newness was, itself, new. Tom wasn't someone she'd known for ages, wasn't a friend who turned into something more, wasn't even an acquaintance who had turned out to be surprisingly interesting, the way that all of her previous partners, brief and lasting, had ever been. Edward had once chided her for living in London and never actually _dating_ but she'd never felt the interest or the need, not yet. Now, without any set-up or planning, she found herself with Tom, wanting him, wanting more of his touch and attention, wanting to know more about him, because there was really precious little that she knew.

"It could work," she said out loud.

"So, it's an idea you're ok with."

"The _idea_ has never bothered me. I've just never had to imagine myself in the midst of it. I thought it was something that applied to other people."

"But you know of it."

She didn't bother to repress her eye-roll. "I went to art school in the late nineties, I could write you a paper on polyamory. It was just never something that seemed to be relevant to me." She kept the other aspects of her knowledge to herself, not wanting Tom to be too complacent, not at first. Her cousin Allen and his wife each had a secondary partner, but that wasn't really what this was about, because she didn't have anyone in mind, nor any particular desire to find anyone. Her step sister had been with a man and a woman for years, but that was the three of them living together in a triad so tight that she sometimes worried they'd become hermits, and that wasn't the picture of what she and Ben would be to Tom either. Still, to say nothing in the face of that sort of statistical anomaly might seem odd in the future too, when it would inevitably come to light if they stayed together long enough. "There are people in my family, too, a cousin, and my step-sister. It's not quite like this though."

Tom sighed deeply. "For someone who knew what I was getting at you let me flounder long enough."

"I didn't, though. I'm not a mind reader."

Tom huffed softly. "Neither am I, obviously."

"Good thing to keep in mind, I should think."

"Yeah, probably rule one, right there." He stretched his arms over his head, craning his neck back until it popped audibly.

"We'll have to work some things out, not rules, exactly, but," she trailed off. "Time is going to be something of a challenge." She tried to quash the part of her brain that seemed to want to shout out _what if I need you and you're not there, because you're with him._ Tom had only been in her life for about twenty-four hours, after all.

"I don't think I'm up for that conversation tonight," Tom said, leaning on the table again. 

"I'm getting tired too. Should we include Ben, when we have that conversation? Or will you be alright having to have it twice, in a way?"

"I think, given how rarely I see him anyway, that we'd be better off for the time being not trying to get all three of us in the same room. I'm not having this sort of conversation over Skype."

"Good call." She yawned. "When can I meet him though? I mean, do you want me to meet him? Do you think he and I would be friends?" It was a function of how tired she was, she thought, that she hadn't censored that last.

"No, Shannon, better not. He's an ass."

She felt her face fall. "What?"

"No, I'm kidding. Of course you should meet him. I think you would hit it off immensely."

"Ok, good."

He stood up and walked over to her and she stood too, leaning into him as he wrapped his arms around her. The last little tendril of cold was chased away, his actual warmth surrounding her, the hug filling her up with the feeling that everything was going to be alright.

"Tired," he said. "Got to go to sleep. Don't want to let you go." His voice was slightly muffled by the fact that his chin was resting just on her shoulder.

"You going to be ok to drive across London? I can take a cab to the train station."

"The trains probably stopped, or you'd have to wait for the late one, and you shouldn't walk through Peckham Rye by yourself."

"Max would escort me home with a phalanx of trained assassins."

He giggled, shaking against her. "Just stay here. I'll take you home in the morning."

"You going to make up the sofa for me? I don't fancy waking up stuck to the leather."

"Mmmm." He grumbled, started walking her across the room with his arms still around her. "Just sleep in my bed. I'm too tired to be anything other than absolutely chivalrous."

"Oh, so it's the fatigue keeping my honor safe," she said as they pulled apart. "Are you going to put a board between us? Sew yourself into a sack?"

He shook his head, wiping at his eyes, clearly worn out from the day, the long night beforehand, maybe, and the conversation he'd just fumbled his way through. "I'll get you some pajamas and a toothbrush. Might be child sized but it'll be new."

"Yeah, ok." The thought of being next to him all night was too appealing to refuse. As he shuffled off to his room, she pulled out her phone, mindful of the text she'd promised her friend.

_I'm spending the night here._

She leaned on the edge of the sofa arm while she waited for the reply, still feeling slightly raw from getting all worked up with Tom's hands all over her only to be cooled off, quite literally, at the kitchen table minutes later.

_I guess I owe Liam a fiver then._

Shannon laughed softly. _You were betting on me coming home, then?_

_I was. But I don't mind._

Shannon flipped the phone over in her hands a few times, pondering whether or not to mention her actual plans for the evening. It was none of Max's business after all, and yet she wanted to say something.

_He's fetching me some pjs now. We're both knackered._

_Sleep tight._

She smiled, amused by the fact that she couldn't hear the tone and had no idea, really, of what it was. _You too. Bye._

She slid the phone back in her pocket just as Tom came back into the living room, all head to toe gray jersey, soft trousers and an enormous hooded sweatshirt with the neck cut out.

"I keep my room cold but I like to be warm. I know it doesn't make sense."

"No, it's fine. My room is cold because I have all the windows but I tend to bundle up too." She took the pile of clothes he handed her, similar tones of gray and soft material. 

"I found you a proper grown-up toothbrush too."

"Thanks."

"I'm going to set up my stuff for tomorrow. You can use the washroom off my room."

"Ok, good."

She felt odd, walking through his room without him there. It was fairly spartan, bed against the wall, a broad dresser covered with papers and folders, books stacked haphazardly to the edge of it, and a single arm chair in the corner of the room with several shirts spread over the back of it. The walls were a pale blue, similar but lighter than the walls in Louis' room, the only really distinctly adult feature being the tall windows that went to the floor, and the en suite. She shut the door to the washroom as she changed, locking the door out of habit, then feeling silly, but leaving it. Tom was making more noise than necessary in the kitchen, the television or maybe the radio turned on, probably to let her know that even in the small space she had her privacy. She felt grateful even as the oddness of the entire situation hit her, staying the night so soon after having met him-- just exactly twenty-four hours, now, really.

She finished brushing her teeth and splashed some water over her face, glad that she hadn't worn any makeup so there was none to wash off, though for all she knew Tom had make-up remover somewhere in the mirrored cabinet over the sink. She didn't open it to find out, just used the toothpaste that was left on the edge of the sink and dried her face on the corner of the hanging towel. Tom had given her a pair of track pants with a drawstring waist and a smaller version of the hoodie he was wearing himself. She folded her clothes into a neat pile and deliberated for a moment about whether or not to take her bra off. The sweatshirt was plenty large enough that it wouldn't be immediately apparent one way or the other, but she hesitated, then slipped it out through a sleeve and stared at herself, then sighed. He'd already seen her breasts, why not let them roam free for the evening. She folded the bra up and stuck it inside the pocket of her jeans, then gathered everything up, trouser bottoms wrapped around her feet like fluffy socks.

Tom came back into his room soon after she was standing there in the middle of the room, wondering if she was supposed to go and fetch him.

"Did you need anything else?"

"No, I'm good. Can I put my clothes on the chair?"

"Yeah, sorry, it's kind of a mess in here."

"No, it's fine." When she turned around he was already lying on his back, the covers folded down. She climbed up on to the bed, the sensation of being aware of what she looked like at every moment new and odd. She wound up kneeling back on her heels, not sure where to put herself.

"Should we draw a line down the middle?" she asked.

"Nah." He held his arm out as she slid under the covers, pulling them up over her shoulder as she tucked herself up against his side. He pulled her pillow over and eased it just under her shoulder as she rested her head against his chest.

"Good?" She could only see a sea of gray, the top of her head flush with his collarbone.

"Very good." He switched off the lamp, the only light in the room a gray glow around the curtains, and some faint light from the electronics plugged in on his bedside table.

She shifted a little, wound up with her higher knee just over his hip, not close enough to be suggestive but still, another point of contact. "It's been a while," she said. "I've forgotten what I'm supposed to do with all my limbs."

He laughed. "There should be some kind of trench in the middle of the bed, maybe."

"One of us would fall in, at some point. As it is, once I fall asleep I'm going to roll away from you. Nothing personal."

"If my arm falls asleep I'll wind up shifting you anyway." He rubbed the hand in question up and down her arm. "Not yet, though."

She shivered at how good it felt, soft fabric rubbing against her skin and all around her the subtle clean scent of him, warm in the bed and cooler air against her face.

"Are you cold?" He tucked his chin to his chest so he could look down at her; she felt it and tilted her head back to look at him, all strange angles and surprising double chin.

"Not at all." She pushed herself away just enough to lean down and kiss him, quick, almost afraid to start something but unable, in that moment, not to kiss him. She kept her eyes open, saw him smile at her as she moved back down under the curve of his arm.

"Do you fall asleep easy?" he asked her.

"Usually. As you have already seen," she reminded him.

"Right. I was exhausted while I was brushing my teeth but now I'm awake. Tired, but awake."

"Is it this?" She wiggled under his arm. "I can move." She almost said that she could go, but leaving the warm comfort of his bed was too much to contemplate, the mere thought adding another layer of fatigue over her mind.

"No, it's not you." He held her tight for a moment, then ran his hand down her back, bringing it back to her arm. He hummed slightly as he did, and she almost asked if he was checking to see if she'd taken her bra off, but she let it go, too tired to even tease him. "Do you ever fall asleep to music?"

"Not for a long time, but I don't mind. When in Rome." 

He leaned away from her and did something with the iPod dock on his bedside table.

"What is it?" she asked, afraid he was going to say it was something she was going to hate, something she'd have to tune out just to get by. 

"This Will Destroy You," he said, the words careful enough that she realized that it was the name of the band, not a warning.

"That sounds restful."

He shifted and bumped against her until she was tight against his side again. "It is."

It was instrumental, mostly guitars, and wistful, reminding her of a slow drive through the country. "It's nice," she said softly. "Is it a soundtrack?"

"No. It could be."

She felt herself falling asleep, spoke before she slipped entirely under. "It feels like everything is going to be alright." She was so sleepy she didn't even chastise herself for saying it out loud.

He kissed the top of her head. "It is."

 _No, I mean everything, everything,_ she thought, but didn't say, asleep or as good as, the room they were in dissolving around her in her mind, the blue black night outside leeching into the penumbra that was always over London, leaving them floating, too buoyant to fall.

 

Shannon stretched as she slowly surfaced, her hands hitting the strange headboard and waking her up all the way. The room was bright enough and she was well enough rested that the reality of where she was came back quickly. She rolled to her side, the place where Tom had been still a warm dent in the blankets. 

She sat on the side of the bed, taking stock of her options. The shower was running in the en suite bathroom. She wondered how quick of an exit Tom would need to make, and simply pulled on her clothes, leaving the warm pajamas folded over the back of the chair. The flat was cool, so on second thought she pulled the gray sweatshirt on over her shirt, folding the cuffs back as she left the room.

Once in the short hallway before the living room she froze, hearing sounds coming from the kitchen. Short footsteps, heavy, someone who had left their shoes on, and the clatter of the cutlery drawer being opened and shut. It was only the springing sound of the toaster popping up that kept her from running back to the washroom to tell Tom that his kitchen was being burgled.

She had the advantage as she slid closer, able to see the person at the worktop though he was turned with his back to her. The person was clearly a man, taller and broader than Tom, dressed warmly in a blue pullover and a wool cap, close cropped hair visible just above his neck. He was clearly very familiar with Tom's kitchen, pulling a butter knife from the drawer without the least searching. She blinked, surprised at herself for _being_ surprised that Ben was this tall black man. She'd imagined him, if she thought of him at all, to be waifish, no match for Tom, and pale, but that was clearly not the case. And it had to be Ben-- no one else would have such thorough knowledge of Tom's living space.

She coughed before she spoke, clearing her throat. "Good morning."

The man didn't startle, didn't jump, only, one moment he'd been turned away from her, the next, he was facing her, the toast and butter knife still in his hands.

"Good morning." His smile was guarded, as well it might be, she thought. "I thought you were Tom coming to sneak up on me."

"Nope. Just me. Tom's in the shower." She was thrown again for a moment by his American accent, wondered if perhaps Tom had a thing for Americans the way some American girls had a fetish for Brits.

"Sorry, who are you?" He set the knife and the toast aside.

"I'm Shannon." She wrapped her arms across her front, holding on to her elbows. After Tom's discussion with her the night before, she assumed that he'd told Ben about her. No, more than assumed, he'd told her that he had.

"Peanut."

"Pardon?"

"My name, I'm called Peanut." He stepped forward and held out his hand.

"Nice to meet you," she said as she shook his hand. "You're looking for Tom, though?"

"Yeah, and to tell you the truth, he needs to be out of the shower about five minutes ago. Figured he wasn't on his way down so I thought I'd come in here and make his breakfast, as usual. Do you want a piece of toast? Sorry, I should have asked." He held up a jar of Jif as he spoke.

"Oh my god is that actual peanut butter? Yes, I'd love a piece of toast with that. Did you have to bring it from home?"

"No, Tesco has it now. At a premium, of course, but it's better than having a suitcase full of the stuff. I got searched every time."

"Because it looks like explosives," she said, nodding. "I won't even get into what they did to my bag when I was bringing back four jars of it plus spools of metallic thread."

"That is just asking for trouble," he said as he pushed down another slice of bread into the toaster. "So you're from the states?"

"From Maine," she said, skipping the explanations that she always wanted to give. "You?"

"Brooklyn. I've been to Maine, though, to Acadia."

"It's beautiful up there," she said. "I'm from Portland, hours away from there." She was itching to get away from the kitchen, to ask Tom how Peanut was actually a nickname for Ben, why he hadn't seemed to know who she was. "Should I go get Tom?"

"Probably be a kinder approach if it's coming from you," he said, smiling. "Go ahead, I'll let him off the hook this once."

Shannon hurried to Tom's room, knocking gently on the open door. 

"Come in." Tom was wearing a pair of track pants and socks, his towel still around his neck, catching the drips from his hair. "You got up in a hurry." He started toweling off his hair.

"There's someone in the kitchen," she said, watching as his hand slowed. "Says his name is Peanut."

"Fuck." Tom toweled his head more vigorously, then threw the towel in the direction of the washroom, glancing at the clock. "Fuck. I didn't realize it was that late."

"He had no idea who I was," she said, hoping she didn't sound too petulant.

"I haven't seen him for a few days." He pulled a thin undershirt out of the dresser and threw it on.

"Tom, who is he?" she asked as he pulled on a sweatshirt.

"He's my trainer." Tom strode out the door, Shannon scrambling to follow.

"So he's not Ben?" She made air quotes around the name as she tried to whisper to him in the short hallway.

If she'd had any doubts, Tom's raucous laugh would have quashed them. He stood in the middle of the living room for a moment, his head thrown back. "No. No, Shannon, I'm sorry," he said when he saw her pained expression. "But no. Some day you'll meet Ben, and you'll understand why that was so funny." She could hear the air quotes in his voice, but remained unconvinced that it was a pseudonym. 

"Why what was so funny?" Peanut asked, "your complete aversion to ever being on time?"

"No. Something else entirely." Tom managed to shut down that line of inquiry with a simple look, and Shannon wondered how long they'd been working together. "I just have to put my shoes on and I'll be ready."

"You'll be eating your toast in the car," Peanut warned him.

"Yeah yeah."

The corner of the living room by the front door only just offered some privacy away from the kitchen. Tom took the opportunity the moment they were out of Peanut's line of sight to kiss her, soft and quick, holding onto her shoulders. "Sorry about rushing you out of here. I'll call you when I get out of the gym."

"Ok. Who is going to look after Max?"

“He had a nice walk this morning and he’s in his crate with his food. I’ll be back in the afternoon and we’ll have another good wander. It’s not ideal but I can’t take him to the gym.”

“I knew you’d have it figured out, I just wondered.”

“You’re a good person, worrying about my dog.” He gave her a quick hug as he finished pulling his shoes on.

Peanut came out to the door, holding their pieces of toast wrapped up in paper towels.

"Are you ok to get a the tube home? I'm sorry." Tom looked pained.

"It's fine, I'm just a little turned around. How far are we from Angel?"

"We go past it on the way to the gym, we can drop you there," Peanut said, handing her a toast.

"Thanks." She hadn't brought much with her, checked to make sure she had her phone and wallet, and followed them down the stairs.

In the back of Peanut's car Tom kept glancing at her as she ate her toast, he having finished his in three bites practically before they'd left the curb. 

"Do you have far to go?" Peanut asked her.

"Peckham. One tube, one train, it's dead simple. Just retracing the steps I would have done last night had Tom not come to get me."

"It's in the opposite direction as where we're going, otherwise I'd take you," Peanut said. Tom looked over at her, nodding, and she realized why he seemed so stressed.

"I know, thanks. It's totally fine." She reached over and squeezed Tom's knee. "I'm a grownup Tom, I can get home by myself. Got my own Oyster card and everything."

"I know, but you're only out here right now because of me."

She rolled her eyes. "Technically correct, but you hardly dragged me out here."

"Speaking of which, you ought to text Max, tell her you're still alive and all."

"Don't make fun, she's got a good heart," Shannon said, but pulled her phone out anyway. _On my way home, see you there if you're up._

"And?"

Shannon looked up from her phone. "And what?"

"I was expecting, and a mean left hook, or and a black belt in karate, or something."

"Sorry to disappoint. Not that I know of, anyway." The area in front of Angel was busy with buses and taxis, so Peanut pulled around to the side street, stopping near a bike rack. Shannon scrambled for a moment, trying to decide if she could safely get out on her side of the car, the passing traffic quite close, or if she should try to squeeze out over Tom's lap. He made it easy for her, getting out himself so she could slide across the seat. She started to thank him, then realized that he was getting out so he could move up to the front of the car anyway, and she was in his way.

"Oh, sorry, I'll let you get on," she said, the noise and hustle of the station suddenly overwhelming after having spent so much time in only his company. 

"I'll call you," he said, reaching for her arm as she tried to turn away. He pulled her close, kissing her cheek, entirely genteel and appropriate for the morning rush. His consideration of their appearance touched her unexpectedly. 

"Alright. Talk to you later." She stepped up onto the curb, waving to Peanut as Tom opened the door. "Nice meeting you, thanks for the lift."

Peanut waved, already focused on pulling back into traffic, and she walked away quickly, willing herself not to look back.


End file.
